We're Famous! :-)

Some of you may remember when I won a bunch of adoption t-shirts and an Ethiopia necklace a few months ago in a raffle... and I was SO excited!  (I never blogged about winning because it was before I even decided to start a blog... I actually found her blog while researching adoption agencies, countries, etc.)  Well, Kim is doing another raffle here on her blog.  They are raffling some really, really cute adoption shirts and since I won last time she included me and Jason in her blog post (hence my blog title "We're Famous").  Last time Kim did the raffle all of the proceeds went to her adoption, but this time there is more... this time some of the funds will be going to Korah, described below from an exert from Kim's blog, but you should go check it out yourself for ALL of the details (and of course to enter the raffle to win some awesome shirts!!!)

For those of you that don't know, much like myself a few months ago, "Korah" in Amharic means "cursed". Around 75 years ago, the Ethiopian government moved everyone with leprosy to this area of Addis Ababa . There are now approximately 100,000 people that live in the slums of Korah and are considered the "outcasts" The other thing that is located in Korah is the city dump. I have had friends say they could see parts of the dump moving and then realized it was people moving. People searching for food to eat and scrap metal to sell.

Please head over to Embracing the Least of These to read more!

On another note: last week, I took half a day Thursday and all day Friday off from work to get some painting done around the house.  My friend Julie came down to help (thank you, thank you, thank you!!!)  I don't think I would have ever finished if it wasn't for her.  Jason left Friday to go to Kentucky with his dad to look at some property we plan to hunt in the fall.  With saving for our adoption, we were unable to schedule any out of state hunts this year, but we are learning that God will always provide (yes, even hunting opportunities).  Not long after deciding to adopt and deciding to not go on any hunting trips this year, one of Jason's parent's friend's called him and insisted he come hunt his property because there are deer everywhere.  Wooo whooo!!  Anyways, while they were busy driving, hanging deer stands, putting corn out, setting up cameras, and more driving...  me and Julie were working hard.  Here are some before and after pictures... (the "before" pictures are from when we first bought the house, so they aren't great pics... also, ignore the bathroom rug under the armoire in the "after" pictures - we had to use it to scoot the furniture and Jason hasn't been home long enough to help me get it out :-)

Our home study agency called Saturday morning to schedule our first in-home visit and she asked if that afternoon would work.  Hahaha... umm... all of our furniture was sitting in the middle of the room, our downstairs bath hasn't been put back together since painting a couple weeks ago, and Jason was out of the state.  My stomach dropped, and I said, "Well, my husband is out of town, can we reschedule sometime next week?"  Thank goodness she agreed :)  So, now we have our first visit scheduled for this coming Saturday!  Hopefully everything will go well, and I'm sure we will learn a lot about being parents... yay!  Now I have to go finish the bathroom we started painting a couple weeks ago... ugh... it's never ending, but will be worth it once it is done... huh, sounds kind of the same way I feel about adoption right now.